DENVER – An MSU Denver men's soccer team that appeared down and out less than three weeks ago is suddenly on the up and up.
 
And now the Roadrunners hope to stay on the rise in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference Tournament.
 
The fifth-seeded Roadrunners (8-8-2 overall, 5-4-1 RMAC) play at fourth-seeded CSU-Pueblo (12-4-2, 5-3-2) in a 6 p.m. first round game Thursday.
 
When the teams met in a non-conference game in September, CSU-Pueblo won 3-0. That preceded a difficult start to the RMAC schedule for MSU Denver, which went 1-4 with the only win a too-close-for-comfort 2-1 decision against last-place South Dakota Mines.
 
Also on the slate were losses of 5-1 to Colorado School of Mines and 5-0 to Colorado Mesa, nationally-ranked teams that finished as the top two teams in the RMAC.
 
But the script has flipped since the Oct. 15 game against Colorado Mesa.
 
MSU Denver closed the regular season at 4-0-1, with only CSU-Pueblo – in a 0-0 tie last Friday at the Assembly Athletic Complex – able to take a point away from a matchup with the Roadrunners.
 
"We're just confident in ourselves," MSU Denver coach Nick Kirchhof said. "We're not too worried about our opponents – although Pueblo obviously is a great, great team. We saw them Friday, and it will be a totally different game on Thursday. The game may not have too many chances again – or it may have a ton, who knows?
 
"We just have to figure out how to attack, how we want to defend, and just realize that now it's knockout soccer. It's bring everything we've got Thursday and see how things fall."

The winner moves into a 2:30 p.m. semifinal Sunday at second-seeded Colorado School of Mines, which drew a first-round bye.
 
In Friday's game, MSU Denver took 12 shots and CSU-Pueblo had 11. The ThunderWolves put four on goal to MSU Denver's three.
 
"We just gave them a great game," MSU Denver forward Aidan Bates said. "I think we're feeling positive, and we're excited to play them."
 
With two coaching changes in the span of 18 months, and disrupted recruiting cycles impacted by the turnover and by COVID-19, a young MSU Denver roster took time to gel throughout the season.
 
"We're fighters," said Bates, a sophomore transfer who has 10 goals. "Being 1-4 in conference and in ninth place, it was looking really grim. But we never gave up. We all just kind of put our heads down and got ourselves out of it."
 
Said midfielder Noah Hannula, who scored his third goal of the season Sunday in a playoff-clinching 4-3 win over UCCS: "We had a weak start to the season, and now we just want to keep this momentum going."
 
Regardless of the result, participating in playoff soccer is a benefit for a roster littered with young players.
 
"To play knockout soccer, it's going to put them ahead of other groups that aren't in the tournament," Kirchhof said. "It's incredibly important – the whole season has been – and I know it's going to pay dividends in the future because these guys have been thrown into the fire playing against teams where sometimes we're even 5 or 6 years younger than guys we are playing against because of COVID.
 
"I couldn't be happier that these guys bought into what we're trying to do as a coaching staff and then fully committed with their effort. Right now we're on a hot streak, and this is when you want to be peaking."
 
Said Hannula: "We could use being a young team as an excuse, but we're not going to take that. Whatever happens, we're all ready. We're all here for a reason. For us, age doesn't matter. We're just playing to win."